


Their Loyalties With Them

by Carmarthen



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Classics, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hope, M/M, Post-Canon, Unrequited Love, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 07:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexios has lost a great deal, but at least he still has a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Loyalties With Them

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Swift Fierce Pleasure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/509363) by [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala). 



> This story started out as a sequel to Sineala's [A Swift Fierce Pleasure](http://archiveofourown.org/works/509363), which is the best conman/thief furry romance ever. Apparently osprey_archer and I were thinking along similar lines, because while I was writing this, she wrote [Heart Companion](http://archiveofourown.org/works/635158), which has a similar premise but more soulbonds and angst.
> 
> Thanks to osprey_archer for the beta!

Alexios had been trying all afternoon to write a letter to his mother, with little success. His arm was much better, and not his writing arm anyway, so he could not blame it on that; it was more that he did not know where to start. It had been many years since he was a small boy who could tell his mother anything, and they had not parted well. She had sent an apology, and socks, when he was at Castellum, but that did not entirely erase the memory of her collapsed before him, weeping with disappointment at her only son--and fear for him, he knew, with a kindness he could feel now but could not before with the shadow of Abusina fresh upon him.

He rubbed at his eyes, noticing suddenly that the light had dimmed and his belly ached with hunger. Perhaps he could try again tomorrow; surely the letter could not grow harder to write. It must be past suppertime already, and he was surprised Hilarion had not come up to find him yet. 

The shadow of his door-curtain swung back, and Alexios looked up, blinking at the warm glow of light from the corridor, but the slight, short figure silhouetted in the doorway was not Hilarion at all.

"Optio Vedrix. Is everything all right? Come inside."

"Yes, sir," said Vedrix, stepping into the sleeping cell. In the lamplight he looked hollow-eyed and gaunt; he had always been a sharp, fox-faced man, but they had eaten well since arriving at Onnum, and Alexios knew the look of a man who had not slept a full night in months. He imagined he looked much the same himself.

Vedrix was nervous, which was not like him; he had his green wolf-cloak on, the head pulled up to snarl over his own face, and he was worrying a corner of the thick wool, twisting it back and forth in his hands. "There's word that you're to go to Belgica with the Attacotti, sir," he said, in a rush.

"It is true."

"You will need trained Ordo officers," said Vedrix, a faint glimmer of earnest hope in his face. Alexios wondered if he had been talking to Hilarion; but Vedrix would not have been his first choice to take with him, and he thought Hilarion would say the same. He did not steal now--often, anyway--and he had helped to save them all on the retreat south from Castellum, but he was not what Alexios would call reliable in the ordinary way of things.

"Yes," said Alexios, "A few. But there will be some going from the garrison here, and a few promoted from among the Attacotti after training--"

"I know, sir," Vedrix said quickly, "and I know there are others, others who are not hard bargains. I only wanted to say, sir, that if you take me I swear I will be the best optio you could ask for. I just--I cannot bear the thought of going back north, where Ber--where too many of the Family died."

So that was the way of it, Alexios thought, and it felt like scab being torn from a wound that had only just begun to heal. Vedrix and Bericus--well, it made a certain amount of sense, looking back. And he understood, he understood too well--if Rome decided to hold Castellum, and sent him back to where he would have to remember Cunorix every day, he did not know if he could have borne it at all.

"I will see what I can do," said Alexios gently, and he could scarcely bear the naked look of gratitude on Vedrix's face as the man saluted hastily and slipped back out into the corridor, the curtain swinging back behind him.

It was not quite the same, Alexios supposed. There had been Shula, for Cunorix, always first, and if Cunorix had ever returned a measure of Alexios's feelings, it would not have mattered. Alexios had been sure it would be worse, to have only a small part of what he wanted than to not have any of it at all. Better to be Castor and Pollux, to have the chaste love of brothers; his Greek ancestors would have said that was better, anyway, a higher form of love.

And of course, Vedrix had had no part in Bericus's death; he bore no guilt, as Alexios himself did. What kind of Pylades killed his Orestes?

Outside the curtain, Alexios could hear footsteps, and the low drawl of Hilarion's voice, followed by a sharp bark of laughter from Vedrix, and then the curtain was lifted aside again, this time by a familiar tall cranefly shape. "Alexios? It is cursed dark in here. Are you going to sit and brood all evening or come down for supper?"

"Supper, I think," said Alexios, standing with some effort. He was not quite up to strength just yet, and could not put too much weight on his healing arm to lever himself up. Hilarion slipped an arm around his shoulders to support him, without Alexios having to ask, and Alexios felt a warm rush of gratitude for his care.

"What did Vedrix want?" Hilarion asked, as they made their way down the corridor.

"He asked to go to Belgica with us."

"Well, that would be interesting," said Hilarion. "Here, wait--" He stopped, fumbling about at his belt, and then pressed something into Alexios's hand. "I somehow do not think this belongs to Vedrix." 

Alexios looked down, to find his own brooch cast in the shape of the Aquila dolphin, that his mother had given him before he went to Abusina, and the laughter took him, quick and free. "At least we would know what to expect from him."

"We would,” said Hilarion, laughter still glinting in his voice.

Vedrix only stole from his friends, these days. And Alexios did have friends still--the whole mad pack of them--and that made everything bearable, only just. He might wish to all the gods that he could have found another way, but if he had to do it all again, he would, for the men of the Third Ordo, Frontier Wolves, for the memory of Lucius and Bericus and little Rufus.

Cunorix had understood that, even as Alexios had understood why Cunorix had taken up arms with the Painted People; they had been of different worlds, and their loyalties with them. But they had been friends despite it, for a moment, and sometimes it was the things that lasted only a day that tasted the sweetest on the tongue.

Someday, when the wound was not so fresh, he might even tell Hilarion about Cunorix. That was not something his mother would understand, but he thought Hilarion might.

And tomorrow, he would write to his mother and tell her the rest--not about what the Frontier Wolves had done, but about what they had been and still were: the men he had shared bread with, the family who had given him a second chance. He would tell her about about Lucius and his Georgics, about Rufus and Typhon, about Bericus’s evil little pet ferret, about Hilarion cheating outrageously at dice.

"Come along, then," said Alexios, "or all the food will be gone; I might starve to death and then the Attacotti would require a new commander."

"I was just thinking I should like another promotion, sir," Hilarion said blandly, and they continued down the corridor together, shoulder to shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> Spot the gratuitous _Blood Feud_ paraphrase, which is either wildly inappropriate or totally appropriate, depending on how you look at it!


End file.
